Tied Down, For My Own Good?

I have to wonder, what is with the seatbelt law. Every day I hear of more and more people talking about tickets they received for not wearing a safety belt in their own cars. There is no freedom of choice about it. We have front airbags, side impact airbags, roll bars, all sorts of safety equipment to keep everyone from getting hurt while driving down the road with the cell phone in one hand, cigarette in the other, drinking a soda and fussing with the kids in the back seat.

There are no allowances for those that might not fit into a safety belt due to a handicap or their weight. If these people wear their belts they can not move quickly enough to shift in a manual transmission car. Nor can they reach for something falling off the seat beside them.

Injuries are common place from the safety devices; spleen damage, broken or dislocated shoulders, extreme bruising inside and out, and broken noses, amongst other things. In some instances, the person, whose safety was in the best interest of the lawmakers, may have never gotten hurt at all, were it not for these great life saving devices.

Maybe I am just plain paranoid.. But will I actually be able to find the seatbelt release to escape if I am in a panic-ed situation such as my car being on fire or going under the water in a flood. Sure, those sorts of accidents are few and far between but I really have a hard time with that.

Okay, so it’s the law. It is for my own protection whether I agree or believe in it. Suffer me the ticket if I can’t slide my arm under the restraint in time for the cop not to notice it is missing from my shoulder.

I would like to have the right to decide if I want to take the risk of not wearing my seat belt. After all we have airbags? why not put them on the other side of us too so they all go off during an impact and we are held into position by all those giant balloons. To me it would make a much less painful impact than having a belt rip and crack at my bones.

Then again it could be because those airbags don’t always work like are supposed to. I had a front on collision.. 2 of them.. I didn’t have my belt on.. (shh!! Don’t tell the police) and you know what the bags didn’t go off. I wasn’t hurt at all. The one accident I did have my belt on in took the pain in my shoulder 3 months to get better.

Even our children are made to sit in safety booster seats that have to be purchased by financially struggling parents for different growth stages for their own protection. (Like we have all that spare money after buying them all the designer clothes they have to have these days.) Okay, I know. It’s the law.

I will admit I do tend to agree with this child safety seat law just because those loving playful little monkeys, we call children, need to be restrained so they don’t distract us, ‘as much’, while we are driving with our cellphones, cigarettes, and sodas in hand.

Here is my major problem with this little safety belt restraint law..

Last week there was an ice storm.. For some reason or another the school district could not locate the person in charge of deciding if it was safe to drive our children to school in these big yellow buses we have here. So on this icy, cold morning the bus drivers were sent out to pick up our children.

Later on the news we started hearing of school buses sliding off the road and ending up stranding our children in ditches on the side of the road.. Were our children safely behind seat belts in these big open seated death traps? Nope, not a seatbelt in sight.. This is where I have a problem and it really bugs me.

I am sure most of you have been behind a school bus going one place or another. Tell me as you looked through those rear windows you seen nice orderly children all sitting perfectly content and still in their seats? Well, if you have I am really surprised.

Those same little monkeys that we have to restrain in our personal cars for sometimes 7 to 10 years (and then for the rest of their lives), for their own safety, are up and jumping around changing seats, bopping each other on the heads with books, tormenting the child with his own mind and doing all sorts of other things that kids do.

What is with that? Why are children allowed to be in huge buses without seat belts or airbags holding them into a safe position? Is it okay on the bus to have their heads bounced off the hard seats in front of them, or racked up against the windows, or thrown across the aisle as the bus accidentally falls off the road sliding towards the ditch? Why aren’t the laws protecting our kids in the school buses? We would get hefty tickets if we were to let them up and jump around in our cars..

Luckily, this particular day of bus sliding, no one got seriously hurt.. But they could have. It could have been devastating as the kids toppled over each other as the bus hit the embankment.

There have been bus accidents in the past like one in Tennessee where children were killed. Would seat belts have saved them? I really don’t know. Do seat belts save everyone in an accident or do they just hold them in a place with no way of escape?

Our school districts would cry ‘it takes money to put seat belts in buses’. (Darn, those football helmets will have to last one more year.) Why should we entrust our children to people who don’t have their best interests in mind? Isn’t that child endangerment? Am I wrong; isn’t there a law about that?

Why should laws only apply to us.
I just think a law that should protect me for my own good should also protect our children when they are not with us especially when left in the hands of government funded public schools. After all it is the government that decided the laws were for “everyone’s” safety. Not like we can sue a school. They already don’t have enough funds to educate our kids to the best of their abilities.

Perhaps the the real reason for the seatbelt laws is a way to make a few extra dollars for the local police departments and governmental agencies when funds are low for that new furniture they want in the lobby or office. It’s not like they speed trap for seatbelt restrictions everyday.

I just feel if you are going to tie me down with laws and fine me for my lack of care for my own safety. *cough* Those same laws should apply to those buses that carry our beloved 66 to 88 little monkeys back and forth to school and activities every day.

Everyone should be tied down by they same laws.. Even government and public schools.